The Holver Alley Crew

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  Ken came halfway down the steps. “Saint Milster’s hasn’t rung it . . . but I think I heard Saint Bridget’s.”

  “Close enough,” Verci muttered. He couldn’t take waiting much longer. “All right, it’s time! Cort, what do we do?”

  Cort took a piece of string dipped in lamp oil and held it up to the flickering flame of the lamp. Then he shoved it into one of the holes drilled into the wall, which he had stuffed with powder and grease. “It’s set.”

  “What happens now, Cort?” Verci asked.

  “Oh,” Cort said absently, “we should probably get behind those shelves pretty quickly. And cover your ears if you want to hear anything for the next day or two.”

  Win’s eyes went wide, and he scrambled over behind the shelves. Cort walked over calmly, wiping off his hands on his leather smock. Verci gave a quick look to Kennith, who bolted back up the stairs. Verci dove behind the shelves, hands over his ears.

  He waited.

  Nothing happened.

  He glanced around the corner.

  Nothing.

  “Cort,” he hissed, hands still over his ears.

  “Wick’s taking a bit longer than I thought,” Cort mused. “It shouldn’t be—”

  The whole room shuddered with a crashing boom that was far louder than anything Verci had ever before experienced. Casks of wine fell down all around the room.

  “There it is,” Cort said.

  “Sweet Saint Maria!” Verci swore. “You said it would be loud, but—”

  Cort giggled in a high pitch. “Yeah, that was a good one.”

  “Blazes, would you look at that,” Kennith said, coming back down the stairs.

  Verci saw: a great big hole in the wall with a wide corridor beyond it. He grabbed his satchel.

  “Come on, boys,” he said. “We don’t exactly have time to gape at this marvel of science. Let’s run.” He took off down the corridor and hoped they were right behind him.

  Chapter 29

  TYNE STUMBLED as the walls shook around him. “What the blazes was that?”

  Josie chuckled. “About that brutish plan with the carriage, Mendel?” He turned back to her in time to see her cane swinging into his head. He dropped down to the ground like a sack of potatoes. She bent over his collapsed form. “I lied.”

  She limped back toward the office as fast as her bad leg could take her.

  The whole gambling floor shuddered. Everyone in the place screamed.

  Helene’s right hand went for her necklace, unhooking the latch and putting it on the table. Her left hand kept the tiny crossbow at the ready.

  “Keep calm!” someone called out from one of the doors. “If everyone could just—”

  Helene freed one of the stones from the chain. A simple toss sent it into the nearest lamp. The reaction was immediate. Smoke poured out of the lamp, thick and dark.

  People pressed for the exit. Others grabbed bills off the tables. Dealers and valets were urging people to be calm.

  Helene threw four more stones. One missed the target, but the other three were true. The whole room started to fill with smoke.

  Helene’s eye went over to Ecrain. She stood up, hands raised, but her face showed mild confusion. Amid the chaos she looked like she was calmly trying to remember an old friend’s name and failing.

  “Lock it down!” a guard screamed.

  “Now would be a good time to move,” Gin said.

  “But Asti!” Mila shouted.

  “We can’t do anything about that!”

  Helene saw the panic in Mila’s eyes. “We’ve got to get out.”

  A guard was blocking the exit stairs. Another ran over to a lever on the wall. Helene grabbed the remainder of the necklace and threw it into a fireplace. No time to waste.

  The result was an enormous burst of smoke and flame.

  The guard by the lever was distracted. Helene aimed her crossbow at him and took the shot. He went down, but not before he grabbed hold of the lever. He dropped and pulled it with him. A heavy metal gate came crashing down in front of the stairway.

  The panicked screams rose to a fevered pitch.

  “Julien!” she called to her cousin. He looked a bit distracted, but not as much as the mage. After a moment he focused on Helene, and pounded his way to the gates.

  Two guards came at him, identifying him as a problem. Helene loaded another dart and shot down the first. The second reached Julien, but only got so far as to put a hand on his shoulder.

  Julien’s massive fist swung back, cracking the man in the skull.

  The carpets and tables closest to the fireplace were aflame.

  Julien pushed his way through the press of bodies, reaching the gate. He grabbed it with both hands and pulled it upward.

  At first it didn’t budge. Then there was a grinding sound, so loud it overpowered the panicked crowd, and a great metallic crack. The gate flew up.

  “Come on!” Gin called, grabbing Mila’s wrist.

  “What about Asti?”

  The crowd slammed through the open staircase. Even Julien’s massive body could not hold them back, and he was shoved to the side. Helene ran to him, Gin right behind her.

  Mila had yanked herself free from Gin’s grasp and ran to the other side of the room.

  “Mila!” Helene shouted. She reached Julien, who had fallen to the floor. “You all right?” she asked her cousin.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “We need to go!” Gin said.

  “What about Mila?” Julien asked.

  “We can’t do anything for her if she’s going to be stupid!” Helene snapped at him.

  Julien’s eyes went wide. “You’d kill anyone who said that about me.”

  Helene felt all the blood drain from her face. Ashamed, she nodded. “You two stay here. I’ll go get her.”

  Miles’s attacks were furious. Blow after blow came to Asti’s face and body, each one he could barely block. He stabbed Miles in the arm with the lock pick, but it broke from the abuse.

  A punch came in too fast to counter, striking Asti directly in his right eye. A savage growl burst forth from his mind, voiced in his throat before he realized it. He lashed out, knocking Miles in the sternum.

  Miles grabbed the chair Asti had been sitting in. Asti punched at him again, nearly incoherent with anger. Miles blocked the punch with the chair, getting Asti’s arm caught in its wooden latticework. He spun it to one side, savagely twisting Asti’s wrist.

  The pain was too sudden, too intense. Red thoughts filled Asti’s mind. Everything was about to go. The chain was about to break.

  “No,” Asti whispered.

  “Oh, yes!” Miles shouted. He swung the chair back, knocking Asti in the head with it. Asti’s wrist snapped from all the twisting of the chair, but his arm was free. The force of the blow sent him reeling toward the door.

  “No!” Asti called out, beating back the raging beast wanting to blot out his mind.

  Miles tackled him into the hallway, knocking Asti to the floor. He punched hard and fast in Asti’s back.

  “You think you can come after us, come after my place, Rynax?” Miles was on his feet, standing over Asti.

  “No,” Asti said, but it was entirely to his own mind. The creeping madness was beating through his skull, but he held it back. Despite the pain, he kicked out at Miles’s knee. Miles jumped back, giving Asti the chance to stand up.

  If he had to die right now, at least he’d die in his right mind, and on his feet.

  Verci had known there was one deep, deep flaw to their whole plan: they had no specific idea where in the whole underground complex the money room actually was. It was a piece of information they had no way of learning until they actually did the gig. Asti’s plan for finding the room was, on its face, filled with insanity, but it had a kind of logic to
it, playing into the fact that Tyne would be expecting something.

  “It’s real simple,” Asti had explained once they were alone with Josie in the Birdie Basement. “Josie goes to Tyne and turns us in. At least, that’s what he’ll think. She tells him that Miles and his boys can grab me from the watch flop at nine bells.”

  “What good will that do?” Verci had asked.

  “They grab me, take me to Tyne’s office. His office is surely right by his money room. He won’t want to be far from it. So once I’m there, and we blow the wall, there’s going to be a lot of chaos.”

  “So then what?”

  “Then I’ll find you, lead you to the money room.”

  “After you’ve been caught by Tyne’s men.”

  “I’ll get away.”

  “‘I’ll get away’ is your plan?”

  Verci really hated this plan.

  Verci took the lead down the hallway, pair of darts in each hand. Cort, Win, and Kennith were all right behind him, but he knew none of them were really up for a fight. Ken might be able to scare away someone with a Ch’omik glower, but Verci had no idea if he actually had any skills in a fight. Win certainly didn’t. Cort held a glass vial in one hand, looking ready to hurl it at anything that moved.

  There was plenty of chaos going on, shouts and screams in the distance. He was more than a little surprised that, so far, no guards were running toward the loud noise that shook the whole building. Maybe none of them could tell the difference between it and the confusion Gin and the others were creating on the gambling floor.

  The corridor ended in a tee. Most of the madness was to the left, but he could hear sounds of fighting to the right. The cries and grunts from that fight were distinctly familiar. He broke into a run, and the other three scrambled after him.

  The hallway rounded another corner, where two figures were beating each other into bloody messes. One of them, though, was more than recognizable by his height, build, and jacket. Verci wasted no time throwing two darts into the back of the other one and following it with two more. The man turned around, more surprise on his face than anything else. When the man turned, Asti punched him in the head, again and again. The man dropped to the ground.

  Asti dropped to his knees. “I had him,” he mumbled.

  Verci quickly appraised his brother’s face. He was bruised and gashed, and his left eye swollen. Verci figured Asti could barely see out of it. “Sure you did. How bad?”

  “Wrist is broken, I think,” Asti said, holding up his left arm. His right one had a shackle attached to it, as did both ankles, though the chain was broken. “I was supposed to find you.”

  “You were supposed to get away,” Verci said. Asti was a mess of blood and bruises. “Can you walk?”

  “Sure,” Asti said, looking a little dazed. He pointed absently to one of the doors. “That’s the office, and I bet that’s the money room.”

  Verci nodded. “Win, check it.” Win went over to the door and started fiddling with the lock. Verci pulled out a small tool and opened up the shackle on his brother’s wrist. “You did good, brother.”

  “Damned blazes I did,” Asti said in a slur. He grinned and grabbed Verci by the head as soon as his good hand was free. “I held it together. I did. It tried to take me, and I didn’t let it.”

  Cort crouched down next to them both, taking out a small vial. He opened it up and offered it to Asti.

  “Blazes is that?” Asti asked.

  “Numb the pain, clear your head, for a bit,” Cort said.

  Asti shrugged, took the vial, and drank it down. “Tastes of horse piss.”

  “Key ingredient,” Cort said, rubbing Asti on the shoulder.

  “This is quite the lock,” Win said. “If this isn’t the money vault, I don’t know what it could be.”

  “My thoughts when I saw the door,” Asti said. Verci glanced back over to his brother. His eyes were more focused, and he was looking at them as if really seeing them all for the first time. “How are we doing?”

  “We’re all here and alive,” Verci said.

  “Capital,” Asti said, getting to his feet. “Someone should be coming soon to stop us from doing this.”

  “I think our confusion plan is doing its job.”

  “Good,” Asti said. “How’s that door, Win?”

  “There’re four different locks involved,” Win said. “And when I got three open, one sprung back shut.”

  “What?” The last thing they needed was to stand around this hallway.

  “It’s very good craft. This may take a bit.”

  “One more minute,” Verci mumbled. He dropped his satchel and opened it up, pulling out a few empty sacks.

  Asti undid the shackles from his ankles and picked up a discarded sword from the ground. He started off down the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” Verci asked.

  “Going for Josie,” he said. “Got to make sure she can get to the hole in the wall fast enough. Where is it, by the way?”

  “Round the bend, thirty feet, left down to the end. Can’t miss it.”

  “I’m off, then. Good luck.” He sprinted off down the hall.

  “Good luck, brother,” Verci responded, but Asti was already out of hearing.

  An ugly metallic crack ripped through the air. “Got it,” Win said. He opened up the door. Verci grabbed a sack and looked inside. It was glorious. Piles upon piles of neatly stacked goldsmith notes, all from reputable houses.

  “Get those bags stuffed, gents,” he said, wasting no time dumping a pile into the one he was carrying.

  Chapter 30

  ASTI POUNDED DOWN THE hallway, pain fading thanks to Cort’s elixir, but he was far too aware of his blind side from his swelling eye. He felt a howling scream, deep inside his skull. The beast wanted to come out, but he no longer had to keep it on a chain. His mind was a cage again, that great red animal was not going to be allowed to come out. Not tonight. Not ever again, had he a say in it.

  “Get your hands off of me!” Josie’s voice, just ahead. No time to waste. He pursued her voice, turning the corner to find three of Tyne’s men grabbing her.

  Asti stabbed one hard, savagely yanking the blade free. The other two men released Josie and turned to him. One leaped right at him, forcing Asti on the defense. The other stood frozen.

  “Come on!” the first guard yelled at his friend. “Help me get him!”

  “You!” the frozen guard said, staring hard at Asti. Asti was struggling, holding off the one man’s attack. The frozen guard dropped his blade and backed away. “I can’t fight you.” He tore off down the corridor. The first guard seemed more surprised than anyone, dropping his defense. Asti took the opportunity to deliver a solid blow.

  “You need me to carry you, Josie?” Asti asked as the man dropped.

  “I’d ask you that,” she returned.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Nothing that can’t heal. Let’s get you out of here.”

  He took her arm over his shoulder and led her back toward their escape hole. Verci and the others were coming down the hallway, all carrying full sacks.

  “How much?” Josie asked.

  “More than I could count,” Verci said. “And that’s just what we could carry.”

  “Blazes,” Asti said.

  “And the rest?” Josie said. “You left it?”

  “What else could we do?”

  “We should burn the whole place down,” Asti said.

  “How do we do that?” Verci asked.

  Cort put down his sacks and pulled a bag of powder out of his belt. “This should do it.”

  Asti snatched the bag from Cort. “All right. What do I—”

  “Don’t touch the powder with your bare skin. Pour it out and then drop a taper or flame on it. Then get out.” Asti nodded in understanding. He gave the other
s a quick wave to head down to the exit, and Josie went with them.

  Verci touched his shoulder. “Brother, we need to—”

  A scream of rage came from down the hallway.

  Miles.

  “He’s still alive?” Verci sounded more annoyed than anything else.

  Asti pocketed the powder and drew his sword. “Go. I’ll hold him off.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Established fact,” Asti said. “Get gone.”

  “You mean . . .” Verci let it hang.

  “Full escape. Meet you in the warehouse.” Verci didn’t move. Blazes. Asti pushed him away. “Go already!”

  “Rynax!” echoed through the halls. Miles was coming.

  Verci sighed and nodded solemnly, then ran off down the hallway. Asti watched until he was sure he was gone.

  “Raise him clean, Verci,” he whispered, then stalked back toward the office.

  Mila pushed her way through the screaming crowd, forcing her way to one of the roped velvet curtains that separated the back offices from the gambling floor. She had no idea if things were going well or badly, but her gut told her Asti was back there, and he needed help. She’d come here to help him, and she wasn’t going to let him down.

  She reached the curtain and was about to slip into the hallway when a rough hand grabbed her arm. She looked to the owner of the hand, an old, bald man with piercing eyes and an exquisite suit. “The blazes are you doing, girl?”

  “I . . . I was trying to find . . . a way out to . . .”

  The man’s eyes scanned the people pressing to the doors, the smoke filling the room, the knocked-over tables, the flickering flames. “Amateurs, making a mess of my place.”

  “Your—”

  He looked back at her, a hard, angry glare. “That isn’t your dress.”

  She didn’t have a chance to say anything. His other hand snapped like a snake onto her neck, tightening with a rage-fueled strength.

  “You think you rats can come in here and crack my house? Do you know who I am?”